


Hey Kid

by chewysugar



Category: Spider-Man (Movies - Raimi), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Big Brothers, Crossover, Gen, Meta, Peter Parker Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 14:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: They all share a name and a backstory. Now it looks like they're going to end up sharing the same fate.





	Hey Kid

Senses that usually dinged for danger went off when he was within twenty feet of the playground; but they didn’t denote an attack. Just another presence—one that felt like him but also slightly skewed. With a sigh, he looked to the top of the web-shaped jungle gym and, what to his wandering eyes did appear but a small, slender form.

Even from this distance and the darkness of the witching hour, he could tell that the kid was crying. His shoulders shook, his head was bowed, and his whimpers would have shattered the stone heart of Sauron.

Shaking his head, Peter Parker crunched across the gravel. He was used to being a hero, but somehow he felt out of his element here. After all, saving a savior wasn’t something he did every day, least of all one who was, in essence, a split-soul version of himself.

But he’d learned never to turn his back on someone in need.

The kid was deep in the trenches; otherwise he’d have heard Peter’s feet crunching through the gravel. As it was, he didn’t notice until Peter was hiked up the side of the trestle dome and sitting next to him.

Christ, but he was young—the most babyfaced of all. When he looked into Peter’s face, eyes wide and brimming, he did so with the expression of a wounded little puppybear. Peter wanted to hug him on that look alone, but knew the scrappy side of the kid would come out swinging. Small wonder the public had devoured him like a plate of glazed donuts.

He sniffled, then looked at the starry sky above. He was costumed save for his bare face. Peter himself had sauntered over in his own suit—the one that had been championed for and delivered to minimal fanfare. There they sat, two similar shapes in different bodies—together but alone.

Peter turned his gaze to the stars. He remembered a night he’d watched them with Gwen—sometime after the Lizard but before the Rhino. So many lights in the darkness. So far away.

“It’s not fair,” the kid whispered after a moment.

Peter sighed. “I’m sorry, buddy. Really. I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

The kid shook his head. “I should be apologizing to you.”

Peter frowned. “Why?”

The kid rubbed at his eyes. “I took it away from you.”

“No.” Even as he spoke, the memory of the injustice burned. Sure, his world hadn’t been perfect. But once upon a time the powers that be would have been content to admit they’d made an error, and move forward for another try. These days the fear was so palpable that one slight wrong foot meant a tumble into oblivion.

The sting of anger jarred him. Peter had always been more volatile in his feelings—one of the reasons his popularity hadn’t been as paramount as the little being next to him. Yet what did people expect of him? He’d lost his parents, been responsible for the deaths of so many people he loved...so he didn’t waltz around making cutesy quips and casting moon eyes at The Avengers...life, unfortunately, gave people a raw deal. Just because he was a hero didn’t mean he was perfect.

He cast a sidelong glance at the boy beside him. The kid wasn’t perfect either. It was only that his imperfections had been buried by the puppeteers of his universe. He couldn’t dare slip up and do anything truly flawed less he lose public approval. He was, in short, a modern child star of the Golden Age of Hollywood—purity clause and all. Even the world that had surrounded him had been too pristine, filled with arbitrary representation for the sake of representation. No depth. Just surface.

But that didn’t mean the poor little guy deserved the short end of things.

“You have nothing to do with them.” Peter gestured at the sky. “You’re great. Really. I know you are. That many people wouldn’t be cheering for you if you weren’t.”

The kid looked sidelong at him, face wet with his shed tears, and damn it if the cold cockles of Peter’s heart didn’t warm a little. His knuckles cracked with a need to shatter the jaw of the bastards and bitches who’d made the kid so broken spirited.

“I wanted to be like you.” His voice broke—geez, he sounded like Simba when he’d found Mufasa dead on the ground. “You were my hero too...but they didn’t let me...I always had to—“

Peter raised his hand, and smiled sadly. “You’re enough, Peter,” he said kindly. “You are. You were what was needed.”

Young Peter shook his head. “No. No I’m no good to anyone. All I do is make them feel better—distract them and make them believe in some...some bullshit sunshine and lollipops world.”

Peter laughed. “Pushing the PG-13 there, little man.”

“M’seventeen,” the other muttered. Adorable. That’s what he was. Like a happy little Labrador retriever with too big paws.

Peter sighed. “Hey,” he said, “I’m not exactly the brightest star in the Antares cluster—

“Smarter than me,” Young Peter grumbled. “You actually used your smarts. I just go around doing everything Mister Stark said.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Peter said with a smirk. “Look, maybe what you did was too...bright and shiny. But lots of people took to it. Sometimes all that’s needed is a pick me up. Sometimes people need something to make them feel good—to distract them.” He spread his hands. “Obviously that wasn’t me.”

The other smiled a little...enough to make Peter feel like he’d reached him somehow. “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said.

“Why not? I’m the one who got the ax.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“And this wasn’t yours.” Peter put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I think your great. I do. Isn’t that enough?”

The kid grinned. “Yeah. From you it is. I just wish...I wish there’d been enough room in this web for the two of us.”

Peter chuckled. “Poetry. Nice. See, that’s another way we differ. I couldn’t be a romantic if I tried.”

“But, Gwen...and Mary Jane and Eddie...”

Peter shook his head. “I kept Gwen before I lost her. And I never really got my Mary Jane. As for Eddie...well, I don’t know which corners of the Internet you’re crawling through, but you might want to rethink them.”

“Even if they’re popular?”

“Popularity isn’t anything. Sure as hell didn’t do us any good.”

The kid nodded, thoughtfully. He looked back to the sky. “I still think you were extraordinary,” he said after a moment. “I still wish you’d been given a chance.”

Peter smiled, and shifted a little closer. “Thanks, little dude. It means a lot.”

Young Peter bristled. “Don’t call me little dude.”

“Why not? We’re practically siblings. What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t tease you?”

“Brother?” He looked around, and yep—he looked as happy as a kid at Christmas. God, now Peter really did want vengeance on the monsters who’d squandered the kid’s potential.

“Sure. Brother.”

The kid smiled, and turned his gaze back to the stars. Peter sat in silence, watching his counterpart, wishing the universe for his future. There was still a chance—however slim. But as he’d learned, it wouldn’t be the same. He’d been left to wander, and while other scribes had taken the reins to try and make it right, it still wasn’t as tangible. Sure, he’d enjoyed swinging through the pages of different stories—ones where Gwen lived, where he and MJ finally crossed paths—and as his little brother had said, ones where he’d ended up in the arms of Eddie Brock (he liked these a little more than those with Wade Wilson) but these couldn’t replace his reality.

But somehow, here, with someone who still rooted for him, it didn’t matter entirely.

The sound of feet walking through pebbles made Peter look around. A shape was emerging from the shapeless shadows. He stood, his fists curled, ready to swing into action...and then his face went slack with disbelief. A middle aged figure had emerged from the darkness. His hairline was slightly receding; his jaw was peppered with stubble; but the suit still fit him like a glove, and the dopey smile made him look younger than he actually was.

Peter laughed.

“Aren’t you a little old to be lurking with the kids?”

Speaking of kids, Young Peter looked round, and stared at the new arrival.

The older man shook his head, then leapt lithely onto the side of the jungle gym.

“Don’t be disrespectful to your elders,” he said. He nodded at the kid. “You holding up, Mini-Mini Me?”

The kid nodded. “Y-yeah.”

“Good.” The man shook his head. “I’m getting a little tired of this.”

“We’d established that,” said Peter, sitting back down. “And since were playing apology volleyball—

“Pass.” The older Peter held a hand up. “It was a different time.”

“Still doesn’t feel great.”

“Who said it had to?” He, too, looked to the heavens. His jaw clenched for a moment. “Christ, there are as many stars as there are versions of us.”

Young Peter laughed. “And we die just as quickly.”

Peter shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it, I suppose.”

The older nodded. “Nothing but watch.”

Young Peter drew his knees up to his chest. “What’s going to happen to us?”

Peter didn’t answer, even though he had an inkling. It didn’t matter what happened to them, not really. What mattered was that they had happened at all—they were in the memories of the lives they’d touched, for better or worse. It was better that they went out with a fizzle, or in the kid’s case, an explosion. Had they not existed at all, and he was certain the world would have been a little bit worse for wear.

A light blinked in the inky black sky—a new life.

But not the same, Peter realized. Nothing could replace the three of them, gathered here in this cerebral meeting place.

“Hey,” the older Peter said. “We’re all here, right?”

Peter nodded. “Looks that way.”

“Why don’t we just team up and cold-cock these sons o’bitches.”

Peter arched his eyebrows. “If they could have had us crossover I think they’d have done so by now.”

“That’s the beauty of it—they’ll never see it coming.”

He glanced at the kid. The other Peter has nodded off, head on his knees.

A team-up?

Peter shook his head at the image. But, he reasoned, stranger things had certainly happened.


End file.
